Sculpting Your Health as a Creative Outlet
Exercise and good nutrition are creative fuel.
By Jill Badonsky, MEd | Posted 3/15/08 | Updated 1/2/21
Self-help programs that passionately instigate positive change employ the act of thinking differently. They instruct us to think differently about: ourselves, the moment we are in, the world around us, our ability to manifest riches, the discovery of soul mate, our possibilities, our struggles, and on and on.
Thinking differently is a vital ingredient of creative success since thinking differently IS creativity.
Health is another VITAL ingredient to creativity. Beth Howard of Newsweek says, "Research has shown that our brains simply work better when we care for them well," but we pretty much knew that without Beth of Newsweek saying it. Many of us seem to ignore that fact and when someone from Newsweek says it at least we read it.
No matter how much we would like to avoid, deny, or have a brownie rather than face it, it is still true that our brains manifest and follow-through with creative ideas better when 1) we feed our bodies nutrition that optimizes mental and physical performance and, 2) we make regular flailing and hopping motions in order to increase our heart rate and circulation. We can still have a brownie as long as we eat our vegetables more often.
Exercise and good nutrition are creative fuel. Be a rebel and eat well. It's not the norm.
Artists, writers and creative persons in general often times ignore eating well and exercising and seem to hold up the same artistic license that they use for breaking rules of conventional thinking in order to break the rules of how their bodies and brains operate best. Processed foods, bad fats, sugar, and sedentary life styles cut short not only our lives but also our creative output. Although being engaged in the creative process does indeed result in healing chemicals dispatched to all of our precious cells, it does not make us exempt from being mortal — darn, I HATE that.
"We can have it all: foods that make us trim and healthy and are delicious too." —Ellie Krieger, Food Network
What if we used the fabulous creative skills that we use to invent ideas to sculpt our health therefore keeping our inventive qualities in operation longer and better? In the Body Blissmas (and a Happy New Rear)™ Program, the creative flexibility of our mind serves our wellness needs with new perspectives, new habits and a gradual shift toward creating a new life style. Disclaimer: For best results, give yourself permission to embody just five percent of the following truths:
- We can reframe our emotional and mental approach to eating healthy and replace, "I have to eat healthier foods" with "I get to eat healthy delicious food."
- We can make the act of food preparation and movement part of our creative art: Not just by the presentation or recipe we use but by adding imaginative fun to the whole idea of changing our habits: by incorporating imaginary friends, new dishware, using music to cook and move by, naming our refrigerator, having special combinations of nutritious food, hanging reminders in the inside of cabinets, dedicating our healthy intentions to causes or special others.. the list is limited only by your imagination.
- Reframe eating fruit (what our body REALLY craves when it wants something sweet). Make fruit a sensual, sexy, juicy, moment where we embrace one of the miracles of nature with all our senses and act as if it's the last time we will experience this delight. The experience motivates the appreciation of fruit.
- For Blissmas participants, the preparation of fresh, whole, unprocessed foods has turned into a sensory and sacred ritual of self-nourishing. It can for you too.
- The painting you see (above) illustrates a serving of snacks made into an artistic moment through presentation and awareness (versus unconscious eating over the sink).
- We make our discipline with a quick 5-minute exercise routine an experience that strengthens our discipline muscle for following through with our creative passion.
- We can use imaginary friends, personifications of disciplined individuals, imagined competition, the power of acting "as if" we are highly devoted — to create a new view of exercise and nutrition.
- We can mind sculpt loving how we are eating better and exercising more — intentional daydreaming promotes both wellness and the creative process.
If you truly want to have the energy to fuel your creative passion and not to sabotage the power of the above suggestions — just practice a little at a time. Remind yourself what works for you. Have trust in a slow unfolding process of making a positive change over time versus a quick fix that does not last.. Unrealistic expectations of immediately embodying and following any change result in short term enthusiasm replaced by the slow return of old, unhealthy patterns.
©2008 Jill Badonsky. All rights reserved.